Ribbon-cutting is 1:30 p.m. Thursday with tours to follow until 3:30 p.m.

The grand opening in the center will be at 7 p.m. Feb. 27, while weekend services begin at 5:15 p.m. Feb. 28 and 10:45 a.m. March 1.

Trinity Fellowship Church started with 35 people meeting in John and Donna Curry's home in 1977 and now counts 8,500 members - 550 new in 2008 - and touches countless lives with its multifaceted outreach in Amarillo.

"Everything we do is designed towards bringing people into intimacy with God," said Marty Rowley, senior pastor.

Video

The 360-degree construction and stadium seating of the worship center allows worshippers to have a clear view of others.

Through the use of 16-foot by 32-foot wall-mounted television screens, speakers and musicians never have their backs to the audience. Images of crosses are formed on walls through acoustic panel placement and sconce lighting. Pneumatic lifts raise and lower musicians onto the platform during worship.

The 45,000-square-foot room is colored in shades of warm beige and classic taupe.

The worship center is the culmination of a construction project costing between $37 million and $40 million that began in 2006 and includes the worship center, the youth foyer that connects the worship center to the U building - where Blu, the church's youth ministry, meets - and the 66,000-square-foot children's building.

Supporters contributed to construction for the last five years during two building campaigns, the second of which ends in October. Donations are expected to reach $25 million total.

Trinity has a history of expansion that dates from its inception.

After only two meetings in the Curry home, the budding congregation moved to Presbyterian Home for Children, then into its first church home at 4808 S. Bonham St., in 1979.

The congregation moved into the west sanctuary at its current location at 5000 Hollywood Road in February 1987 with 1,000 people. By 1999, it was expanded so that it held 1,750 seats.

"Our motivation (to expand) is not because we would like to see more people in our new worship center," Rowley said.

"What we're trying to accomplish is to send more people out to the community to be a blessing to the community."

Trinity members are involved in multiple ministries, some of which benefit members and some of which help strangers. One community activity is a free Life Care Ministry Center.

Sixty-five percent of the people who seek counsel, prayer or pastoral advice do not attend Trinity, said Cindy Rowley, executive pastor of Care and Connection.

"We believe the body is called to do the work of ministry," Cindy Rowley said.

Curry, a church elder, recalled that first Sunday meeting in the fall of 1977 in his home.

Folding chairs were set up in the entry hall and living room of his home for adult worshippers while children had Sunday school in an upstairs bedroom.

"That night they all came back. We had another worship service," Curry said.

"There was kind of an immediate excitement that was generated."

The group never intended to start a new church, but wanted to allow God to teach and train them, he said.

"It's just, overall, amazing what God has done with the planting of a small seed and several people, 35 people, who decided they want more of God, and as best we could we wouldn't limit what God might do."

By the numbers

When Trinity Fellowship Church initiated the building project scheduled to open this week, it was the Jonah's whale of 2006 building permits, at $29 million. A worship center, foyer and children's area completed the expansion.

1988: Trinity Fellowship School opened in September with 54 students, kindergarten to third grade. Today the school, which became Arbor Christian Academy in 2005, houses kindergarten through 12th grade and has 339 students.

1994: MarriageToday, a national marriage ministry and television program hosted by Jimmy and Karen Evans, launched.